ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Liberal Democrat leaders know perfectly well that under universal jurisdiction all states that are party to the Geneva Conventions are obliged to seek out and prosecute or extradite those suspected of grave breaches of the Conventions and bring them justice, regardless of nationality.

“Grave breaches” means willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and other serious violations of the laws of war, the sort of atrocities that have been (and still are) committed wholesale by Israelis against civilians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and on the high seas.

In other words, for these vilest of criminals there should be no hiding place.

The British government shirks its solemn duty. Fortunately, the law at present allows private applications for arrest warrants.

However, your coalition partners, the Conservatives, 80 per cent of whom are claimed to be signed-up Friends of Israel, plan to interfere with our laws of arrest in order to protect those criminals they count among their friends. Apparently this will be done by ensuring that arrests for war crimes become strictly political decisions enabling the government of the day to pick’n’choose.

Foreign Secretary William Hague, a Friend of Israel since his schooldays, recently told the pro-Israel lobby:

We have had good discussions with Israeli ministers on universal jurisdiction where the last government left us with an appalling situation where a politician like Mrs [Tzipi] Livni could be threatened with arrest on coming to the UK… We have agreed in the coalition about putting it right, we will put it right through legislation that will be introduced… I phoned Mrs Livni amongst others to tell her about that and received a very warm welcome for our proposals.

You, the Liberal Democrats, have already agreed to this???

Has everyone forgotten that Tzipi Livni, Israel’s former foreign minister, was largely responsible for the terror that brought mega-deaths and unimaginable destruction to Gaza’s civilians nearly two years ago?

Showing no remorse for the 1,400 dead (including 320 children and 109 women), the thousands horribly maimed and the hundreds of thousand made homeless, Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of Operation Cast Lead, the murderous blitz she unleashed. Later at a conference in Tel Aviv she declared: “I would today take the same decisions.”

Many of you will recall how Israel violated the Egypt-brokered ceasefire to provoke a response that could then be used as an excuse to launch the onslaught Israel had been preparing for months.

You may also recall that in 2007, when Israel tightened the siege on Gaza, the prime minister’s adviser, Dov Weisglass, said: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger”. Documents just released under a Freedom of Information petition by Gisha, an Israeli law centre, reveal that Israel operated “a policy of deliberate reduction” of basic goods in the Gaza Strip.

The papers confirm that the siege was not for security reasons but to keep Gazans at near-starvation level in order to bring down Hamas, the people’s choice. Since around half the population are growing children, this inhuman act of collective punishment has meant that hundreds of thousands of youngsters are undernourished and permanently damaged.

Gisha’s director accuses Israel of “paralyzing normal life in Gaza”, and adds: “I am sorry to say that major elements of this policy are still in place.”

Israel’s current foreign minister, ex-bouncer Avigdor Lieberman, is a convicted child-beater and has been variously described as “a virulent racist” and “a certified gangster”. He directly violates international law by living in one of Israel’s illegal settlements. “If you liked Mussolini, if you were missing Stalin, you’ll love Lieberman,” a member of Israel’s Meretz party observed.

All the same, Hague wants him freely walking the streets of London with Livni and the rest of the world’s psychopaths.

Whatever happened to the Liberal Democrats’ pledge to “reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, etc…” and to “fight poverty, oppression, hunger, ignorance, disease and aggression wherever they occur and to promote the free movement of ideas, people, goods and services”? These fine promises are incorporated into the party’s constitution.

Only last year Nick Clegg, LibDem leader and now deputy prime minister in the coalition, was telling the Jewish Chronicle: “The very suggestion that I might explicitly or tacitly give cover for racism, I find politically abhorrent and personally deeply offensive.”

Who would have believed that any senior Liberal Democrat would support a move to undermine our justice system in order to make the UK a safe haven for blood-soaked foreign leaders whose policies and unspeakable crimes are alien to LibDem principles, disgusting to the British public and condemned by international law?

If we allow the warmongers to come and go as they please, civilized people will never be able to take back their world.

We read that Hague was sent away from Tel Aviv with a slap in the face the other day when the Israelis without warning suspended dialogue with Britain. As if that wasn’t embarrassment enough for such an ardent admirer, Hague now intends to humiliate us all by grovelling and tinkering with British law to appease them.

If Parliament passes measures to undermine the important principle enshrined in the Geneva Conventions and weaken the law to enable those wanted for crimes against humanity to evade arrest, wouldn’t that make the whole British nation an accessory to those crimes?

And please reflect on how nodding it through would be just about the lowest thing anyone could do.

NEW YORK – Lawyers for the Barack Obama administration told a federal judge Monday that the U.S. government has authority to kill U.S. citizens whom the executive branch has unilaterally determined pose a threat to national security.

That claim came in federal court in Washington, D.C. in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The two human rights legal advocacy organisations contend that the administration’s so-called “targeted killing authority” violates the constitution and international law.

“The full contours of the government’s position would allow the executive unreviewable authority to target and kill any U.S. citizen it deems a suspect of terrorism anywhere,” CCR attorney Pardiss Kebriae told IPS.

“As the government would have it, while non-citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay can challenge the deprivation of their liberty by the United States, a U.S. citizen could not challenge an impending deprivation of his life by his own government.”

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the government’s claim to an unchecked system of global detention, and the district court should similarly reject the administration’s claim here to an unchecked system of global targeted killing,” she said.

The ACLU and the CCR were retained by Nasser Al-Aulaqi to bring a lawsuit in connection with the government’s decision to authorise the targeted killing of his son, Anwar Al- Aulaqi. The lawsuit asks the court to rule that, “outside the context of armed conflict, the government can carry out the targeted killing of an American citizen only as a last resort to address an imminent threat to life or physical safety.”

Anwar Al-Aulaqi was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico and has dual U.S. and Yemeni citizenship. He is a firebrand extremist imam who has been accused by government officials and in the press of using his sermons and the Internet to recruit jihadists. He is thought to be in hiding in Yemen.

The lawsuit also asks the court to “order the government to disclose the legal standard it uses to place U.S. citizens on government kill lists.” “If the constitution means anything, it surely means that the president does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, who presented arguments in the case.

“It’s the government’s responsibility to protect the nation from terrorist attacks, but the courts have a crucial role to play in ensuring that counterterrorism policies are consistent with the constitution.”

The government filed a brief in the case in September, claiming that the executive’s targeted killing authority is a “political question” that should not be subject to judicial review. The government also asserted the “state secrets” privilege, contending that the case should be dismissed to avoid the disclosure of sensitive information.

On Aug, 30, 2010, the CCR and the ACLU filed suit on behalf of Nasser Al-Aulaqi against President Obama, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta and Defence Secretary Robert Gates, challenging their decision to authorise the targeted killing of his son as a violation of the U.S. constitution and international law.

“Targeting individuals for killing who are suspected of crimes but have not been convicted – without oversight, due process or disclosed standards for being placed on the kill list – also poses the risk that the government will erroneously target the wrong people,” the groups noted.

“Since 9/11, the U.S. government has detained thousands men as terrorists, only for courts or the government itself to discover later that the evidence was wrong or unreliable and release them.”

The Justice Department declined to comment on the case, which is one of two related lawsuits brought by the ACLU and the CCR.

The second is against the U.S. Treasury Department and its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) challenging the legality and constitutionality of the scheme that requires them to obtain a license in order to file a lawsuit concerning the government’s asserted authority to carry out targeted killings of individuals, including U.S. citizens, far from any battlefield.

On Jul. 16, however, the Secretary of the Treasury labeled Anwar al-Aulaqi a “specially designated global terrorist”, which makes it a crime for lawyers to provide representation for his benefit without first seeking a license from OFAC.

The CCR and the ACLU sought a license, but after the government’s failure to grant one despite the urgency created by an outstanding authorisation for Al-Aulaqi’s death, the two groups brought suit challenging the licensing scheme as applied to the representation they seek to provide.

CCR and the ACLU have not had contact with Anwar Al-Aulaqi.

The OFAC requirements generally make it illegal to provide any service, including legal representation, to or for the benefit of an individual designated as a terrorist. A lawyer who provides legal representation for the benefit of such a person without getting special permission is subject to criminal and civil penalties.

In their lawsuit, CCR and the ACLU charge that OFAC has exceeded its authority by subjecting uncompensated legal services to a licensing requirement, and that OFAC’s regulations violate the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the principle of separation of powers.

The lawsuit asks the court to invalidate the regulations and to make clear that lawyers can provide representation for the benefit of designated individuals without first seeking the government’s consent.

The OFAC case is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Secret documents have leaked from inside Kopassus, Indonesia’s red berets, which say that Indonesia’s US-backed security forces engage in “murder [and] abduction” and show that Kopassus targets churches in West Papua and defines civilian dissidents as the “enemy.”

The documents include a Kopassus enemies list headed by Papua’s top Baptist minister and describe a covert network of surveillance, infiltration and disruption of Papuan institutions

The disclosure comes as US President Barack Obama is touching down in Indonesia. His administration recently announced the restoration of US aid to Kopassus.

Kopassus is the most notorious unit of Indonesia’s armed forces, TNI, which along with POLRI, the national police, have killed civilians by the hundreds of thousands.

The leaked cache of secret Kopassus documents includes operational, intelligence and field reports as well as personnel records which list the names and details of Kopassus “agents.”

The documents are classified “SECRET” (“RAHASIA”) and include extensive background reports on Kopassus civilian targets — reports that are apparently of uneven accuracy.

The authenticity of the documents has been verified by Kopassus personnel who have seen them and by external evidence regarding the authors and the internal characteristics of the documents.

Some of the Kopassus documents will be released in the days to come, in part via my website.

Those being released with this article concern West Papua, where tens of thousands of civilians have been murdered and where Kopassus is most active. Jakarta has attempted to largely seal off Papua to visits by non-approved outsiders.

When the US restored Kopassus aid last July the rationale was fighting terrorism, but the documents show that Kopassus in fact systematically targets civilians.

A detailed 25-page secret report by a Kopassus task force in Kotaraja, Papua defines Kopassus’ number-one “enemy” as unarmed civilians. It calls them the “separatist political movement” “GSP/P, ” lists what they say are the top 15 leaders and discusses the “enemy order of battle.”

All of those listed are civilians, starting with the head of the Baptist Synod of Papua. The others include evangelical ministers, activists, traditional leaders, legislators, students and intellectuals as well as local establishment figures and the head of the Papua Muslim Youth organization.

The secret Kopassus study says that in their 400,000 – person area of operations the civilians they target as being political are “much more dangerous than” any armed opposition since the armed groups “hardly do anything” but the civilians — with popular support — have “reached the outside world” with their “obsession” with “merdeka” (independence/ freedom) and persist in “propagating the issue of severe human rights violations in Papua,” ie. “murders and abductions that are done by the security forces.”

Given that the Kopassus report states as settled fact that security forces do “murder, abduction,” those who they define as being the enemy can be presumed to be in some danger.

In its discussion of “State of the enemy” Kopassus identifies the enemy with two kinds of actions: “the holding of press conferences” where they “always criticize the government and the work being done by the security forces” and the holding of private meetings where they engage in the same kind of prohibited speech.

The Kopassus “enemies” list — the “leaders” of the “separatist political movement” includes fifteen civic leaders. In the order listed by Kopassus they are:

— Reverend Socrates Sofyan Yoman, chair of the Papua Baptist Synod

— Markus Haluk head of the Association of Indonesian Middle Mountains Students (AMPTI) and an outspoken critic of the security forces and the US mining giant Freeport McMoRan;

— Buchtar Tabuni, an activist who, after appearing on the Kopassus list, was sentenced to three years prison for speech and for waving Papuan flags and was beaten bloody by three soldiers, a guard, and a policeman because he had a cell phone;

— Aloysius Renwarin, a lawyer who heads a local human rights foundation;

— Dr. Willy Mandowen, Mediator of PDP, the Papua Presidium Council, a broad group including local business people, former politcal prisoners, women’s and youth organizations, and Papuan traditional leaders. His most prominent predecessor, Theys Eluay, had his throat slit by Kopassus in 2001;

— Drs. Agustinus Alue Alua, head of the MRP, the Papuan People’s Council, which formally represents Papuan traditional leaders and was convened and recognized by the Jakarta government;

— Thaha Al Hamid, Secretary General of the Papua Presidium Council;

— Sayid Fadal Al Hamid, head of the Papua Muslim Youth;

— Drs. Frans Kapisa, head of Papua National Student Solidarity;

— Leonard Jery Imbiri, public secretary of DAP, the Papuan Customary Council, which organizes an annual plenary of indigenous groups, has staged Papua’s largest peaceful demonstrations, and has seen its offices targeted for clandestine arson attacks;

— Selfius Bobby, student at the Fajar Timur School of Philosophy and Theology.

Reached for comment, Reverend Socrates Sofyan Yoman of the Baptist Synod laughed when told he headed the Kopassus list. He said that churches were targeted by TNI/ Kopassus because “We can’t condone torture, kidnapping or killing.” He said that he has received anonymous death threats “all the time, everywhere,” but that as a church leader he must endure it . He said the real problem was for Papua’s poor who “live daily in pressure and fear.”

Markus Haluk said that he is constantly followed on foot and by motorcycle, has been the subject of apparent attempts to kill him, and receives so many sms text death threats that he has difficulty keeping current with the death-threat archive he tries to maintain for historical and safety purposes.

One threat, written months after his name appeared as a target in the Kopassus documents, promised to decapitate him and bury his head 200 meters deep, while another imagined his head as a succulent fruit to be devoured and swallowed by security forces.

But as a famous figure in Papua, Haluk enjoys, he thinks, a certain kind of protection since when security forces have actually arrested him it has at times touched off street uprisings.

Village Papuans, he said, enjoy no such advantage. For them, being targeted by Kopassus “can get you killed. If there’s a report against you, you can die.”

Contacted in prison, Buctar Tabuni, the number three enemy on the Kopassus list, told of getting a death threat with a rat cadaver, described living with round-the-clock surveillance, and said the threats to him repeatedly stated that “you will be killed unless you stop your human rights activities.”

Three days ago, writing from his prison cell, Buctar Tabuni called on President Obama to cut off aid to TNI and back a democratic vote on Papuan independence. He told me that Indonesia follows the US lead and that the US was complicit since, as he wrote Obama, US-trained “troops in cities and villages all over West Papua treat the people like terrorists that must be exterminated.”

Anti-terrorism was indeed Obama’s main argument for restoring US aid to Kopassus, but the documents make clear that Kopassus mainly targets unarmed civilians, not killers.

In fact, the main unit that wrote the secret documents, SATGAS BAN – 5 KOPASSUS, is ostensibly doing anti-terrorism, with the Kopassus Unit 81, Gultor.

Obama justified the Kopassus aid restoration to Congress by saying that the initial US training would be given not to Kopassus as a whole but only to its anti-terror forces. The White House and Pentagon suggested that these forces were less criminal than the rest of Kopassus and of TNI/POLRI, but the documents establish that they, like the rest, go after civilians like the Papuan reverends and activists.

Reverend Giay said, when reached for comment that TNI, Kopassus and POLRI were making the case that “it’s OK to kill pastors and burn churches since the churches are separatist.”

Among Giay’s collection of anonymous sms death threats was a political missive demanding that “the reverend stop using the platform of the church to spread the ideology of free Papua.”

Giay said that “they need ideological and moral support from the Indonesian majority and the media” so they use Kopassus and others to attack the churches as constituting security threats.

He compared TNI/Kopassus actions in Papua now to those earlier in East Timor and the Malukus where “they created this conflict between Muslims and Christians” to expand their presence and get more money and power.

Reverend Giay said that “local pastors have been targeted. They kill them off and report them as separatists.”

The Kopassus documents boast that “in carrying out the operational mission of intelligence in the kotaraja area, we apportion work in order to cover all places and avenues of kotaraja society.”

The files show that Kopassus indeed penetrates most every part of
popular life. In addition to plainclothes Kopassus officers who go undercover in multiple roles, Kopassus fields a small army of non-TNI “agents” — real people with real lives and identities, who are bought, coerced or recruited into working covertly.

Kopassus Kotaraja area agents discussed in the secret personnel files include reporters for a local newspaper and for a national TV news channel, students, hotel staff, a court employee, a senior civil servant who works on art and culture, a 14 year old child, a broke, “emotional, drunken” farmer who needs money and “believes” that Kopassus will “take care of his safety,” a “hardworking” “emotionally stable” farmer who also is a need of funds, a worker who “likes to drink hard liquor,” is poor and “likes to believe things,” a motorcycle taxi driver, a cellphone kiosk clerk who watches people who buy SIM card numbers, and a driver for a car rental company who “frequently informs on whether there are elements from the Separatist Political Movement who hire rental cars and speak regarding independence/freedom (merdeka).”

In the file, though, the word “merdeka” is not spelled out. In accord with Kopassus practice, only an initial is written, in quotation marks: “‘M'”, the unwritable, unspeakable M-word.

The documents support the longtime word on the street: you rarely know who is Kopassus. So best watch what you say if you care for safety, especially if what you say is “freedom.”

While Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) may have claimed responsibility for the parcel bomb plot, it’s worth considering how this latest Yemen-linked terror scare has been a gift to their avowed enemies.

A mere two weeks before the discovery of mail bombs addressed to “two places of Jewish worship in Chicago,” Rupert Murdoch sounded prescient as he received an award from the Anti-Defamation League for his support of Israel. “The terrorists continue to target Jews across the world,” declared the media mogul in his acceptance speech. “But they have not succeeded in bringing down the Israeli government – and they have not weakened Israeli resolve.” Equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, the Fox News owner smeared the growing worldwide condemnation of Israel’s rogue behaviour as an “ongoing war against the Jews.” … continue

AL-KHALIL — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) broke into the house of MP Samira Al-Halaika and took away her eldest son Anas in a pre dawn raid on Wednesday, the MP said in a press release.

She said that an IOF unit in four military vehicles and a white civilian car stormed the Qafan Khamis suburb east of Al-Shuyukh town in Al-Khalil district at 0300 am Wednesday and kidnapped her son Anas, 24.

She said that the soldiers locked up all her family members in one room and summoned her along with her husband and told them that they will take away their son Anas.

The lawmaker noted that her son was supposed to meet an Israeli intelligence official on Wednesday in Eztion on Wednesday morning.

Halaika held the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) fully responsible for any repercussions that might befall her son, who was released from the jails of security militias loyal to de facto Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on 5/9/2010 after 45 days in solitary confinement, which had a very bad physiological impact on him due to the continued isolation and cruel treatment.

She appealed to all human rights groups to intervene and demand an end to the suffering of her family due to the practices of the IOA and Abbas’s militias.

The IOF had previously detained Anas in October 2005 and released him in November 2006 before Abbas’s militias repeatedly summoned him before holding him in custody on 16/9/2009 for one month and apprehended him again on 21/7/2010 before his release on 5/9/2010.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli police detained three Palestinian guards of the Aqsa Mosque after they prevented a group of settlers from making what they called repairs in the Islamic Khatuniya School at the Aqsa Mosque.

The police also summoned for interrogation engineers of the Palestinian ministry of religious affairs who are members of the Mosque’s renovation committee.

The settlers resumed their work after Israeli policemen escorted them back to the School. The police deliberately intervene in renovation works at the Aqsa Mosque and still prevent the Palestinian ministry of religious affairs and its entitled Islamic institutions from carrying out repairs at the Aqsa Mosque’s premises including this School.

Al-Khatuniya School is located behind Al-Aqsa Mosque’s mihrab and there are a door and stairs leading to it behind this mihrab. It is part and extension of the old Aqsa Mosque and includes other sections and an Islamic library.

Sheikh Abdelazim Salhab, the head of the Islamic endowment council, condemned this Israeli act as an attack on the Aqsa Mosque and a violation of the jurisdiction of the ministry of religious affairs and its institutions, the only parties authorized to restore the Islamic holy sites in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Featured Video

From the Archives

Winter Patriot | September 10, 2016

… I have my own notion of why the facts of 9/11 must be suppressed, and I can explain it in five short paragraphs:

(1) The official story of 9/11 has been used to justify drastic military actions by the United States and its allies, actions which have brought death, destruction, and chaos to Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and many other countries.

(2) The same story has also been used to justify drastic changes in domestic policy, in the United States and in much of the world. These changes have resulted in the persecution, incarceration, torture, and death of many innocent people, not to mention the erosion of civil rights and the perversion of the democratic process in every nation that once enjoyed these things.

(3) If it were widely and clearly understood that the official story of 9/11 is not only obviously false but a carefully crafted fiction, the military actions described above would be seen as unjustified acts of mass murder, war crimes and crimes against humanity; the policy changes would be seen as acts of treason; the people responsible for these actions might be in danger of accountability; and the new policies themselves might even be in danger of reversal, in which case the people who benefit from these policies might need to find a new way to feed at the public trough.

(4) If the official story were true, the facts of 9/11 would support it, and independent research would confirm it. Therefore the facts would be widely publicized and independent researchers would be encouraged. But none of this is happening, and that’s because the facts of 9/11 undermine the official story, and the independent researchers destroy it.

(5) Therefore the facts and the independent researchers must both be suppressed. Otherwise the new policies would be in danger, the people who implemented them would be in danger, the people who profit from them would be slightly inconvenienced, and the perpetrators of 9/11 might actually be brought to justice. … Read full article

Aletho News Original Content

By Aletho News | January 9, 2012

This article will examine some of the connections between the US and UK National Security apparatus and the appearance of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory beginning after the accident at Three Mile Island. … continue

Contact:

atheonews (at) gmail.com

disclaimer

This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.

This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.

Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.

Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.

The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.

The word "alleged" is deemed to occur before the word "fraud." Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.

Fair Use

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

DMCA Contact

This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.

If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.

We will respond and take necessary action immediately.

If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.

All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.